Weeks after migrant families were evicted from a city shelter as part of a new policy, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams rallied with faith and community leaders Monday against the move, calling it harsh and unfair.
“I urge the mayor to abandon this counterproductive and cruel, cruel tactic,” she said during the rally.
Speaker Adams called on Mayor Eric Adams to end the 60-day limit on shelter stays for families, saying it leaves families scrambling for stability, having to move every two months.
“It pains me to see young children and families harmed by the 60-day policy,” she said.
“Our mayor is a slumlord,” Councilmember Diana Ayala said during the rally. “A slumlord is defined by a person who has property and who evicts people little by little by taking away services.”
Power Malu has worked with newly arrived migrant families since 2022. Malu says many of the families who’ve changed shelters have found themselves with a much longer commute to their child’s school, adding “they’re worried not only about safety but also they accumulated some belongings that they now have to get rid of because they keep moving place to place.”
Mayor Adams first announced families would have to re-apply for shelter after 60-days last October, as the city ran out of room, money and staff to provide for the migrants in its care. Earlier this month, the first group of families to reapply for housing checked out of The Row Hotel.
At the time, the mayor said, “this is not going to be a city where we place children and families on the street and have them sleep on the street. That is going to happen.”
In a statement to NY1 a spokesperson for the mayor’s office said Monday, “thanks to, in part, our 30 and 60-day intensive casework policies, we have helped more than 102,600 asylum seekers — more than 60% of those who have come through our care — take the next step on the path to self-sufficiency without a single family with children being forced to sleep on the street.”
